And the Buddha taught two ways to validate truth, i.e. logical inference and factual reasoning. No one can argue with any claim which is backed by these two. Why don't we use them for the measure to end jhana debate? By using it, we can agree with something which is unequivocally definitive that would bring the debate to an end.
- You didn't solve anything by saying so.tiltbillings wrote:And that is your opinion.ignobleone wrote:That is one fundamental. It's related to saddha, to be more precise, confidence in the Dhamma, which means in this case we want to arrive at the certainty of the Teaching. Because you don't want to be "an uninstructed run-of-the-mill person who hasn't arrived at the certainty of the True Dhamma." The best we can get certainty is from the main suttas.
- I can say the exactly same sentence to your previous comment, but it won't do any good.
- Btw what's the matter with opinion? How about if the opinion is backed by logical inference and factual reasoning? I haven't explained the basis of my opinion. I'll write it below.
Isn't it too early to say who's being arrogant and presumptive? I haven't written my explanation. I expected your question (below) because my explanation will also be my answer. We shall see who's been arrogant.tiltbillings wrote:You are being arrogant and presumptive here.Practice and practice, a very common view. Are you sure you don't waste your time by doing the practice? What jhana practice, what kind of teacher - are the questions you need to investigate first. I suppose your teacher was from Theravada tradition. Do you know that Theravada these days can be equalized to commentaries? And commentaries are unreliable.
Tracking back the source of the Teaching from the origin, we have the following order:Why should I take your reading of the suttas as being any more reliable than the commentators or any Theravadin teacher?
As I said to you once before:
dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=5761&start=180#p174179
1. The Buddha, the origin of the Teaching
2. Direct disciples of the Buddha (Ananda, Sariputa, etc)
3.a) Main Suttas (from the 1st Buddhist council)
b) direct disciples of #2
4.a) generations below #3.b
b) Sutta Commentaries
5. Monks/teachers these days
By using logical inference:
- The closer to the origin, the more reliable. Commentary = sutta commentary, which means it exists after the sutta.
- Regarding your concern on the language problem/barrier (from the link you gave), commentators can also easily mislead because of the language problem. Why should I believe commentators translated/interpreted better? (you get a similar question here)
By using factual reasoning:
- Most of the Pali words already have clear meaning. They're much larger in number compared to the number of ambiguous Pali words. Otherwise, Thanissaro Bhikkhu or Bhikkhu Bodhi couldn't have translated a lot of suttas. Regarding any unclear/ambiguous Pali words, it's a limitation we cannot solve totally unless there's a native Pali speaker who's also fluent in English(or any other modern language) alive and can be asked to be a living dictionary. But there's a possible workaround for the limitation, i.e. like I've said before, by finding consistency of usage in more than one sutta, so that we can deduce the meaning from the context where it's used.
- Jhana bifurcation is an enough fact that commentators didn't translate/interpret quite well, compared with reading from suttas (Pali version or someone's translation).
- In a job interview, interviewer will skip any candidate which only have even one single mistake, because companies want least risk from choosing candidates. In the same way, it's reasonable to disqualify commentary.
Let's see what's the basis of your claims.